


The Ghost Of You

by worldturnedupsidedown



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Pre-Relationship, Supernatural Elements, ToT: Chocolate Box, Treat Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-27 12:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8402632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldturnedupsidedown/pseuds/worldturnedupsidedown
Summary: Sakura is haunted by Sasuke.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mornelithe_falconsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/gifts).



> This is pretty much gen all the way through but I've labelled it as pre-relationship because of them being in a relationship after the fic. That said, this is a vague-AU because of how ghost!Sasuke changes Sakura and their relationship.

The first time Sakura sees him, she's half-mad on sleep deprivation and guilt from seeing her friends coming back bleeding and broken to retrieve her disloyal teammate. She saw it in gritty, bloody reality and then she sees it every night in her dreams, the blood brighter and with every replay the images seemed to get seared into her brain further and further. Soon after, every time she closed her eyes she could see her injured friends on the inside of her eyelids.

"Sasuke?" She speaks his name out loud when she sees him, to dispel the illusion despite her gaze devouring every last detail. He looks the same as he had when they had first graduated together, as if Orochimaru had never touched him, his blue shirt gaping enough at the neck to let her see there is no mark on his neck. This, more than anything, leads Sakura to believe she's awake (Sasuke in her nightmares always has that cursed mark marring his skin) but the Sasuke she saw in front of her wasn't real all the same.

Her mind was really a messed up place, she mused wryly. No wonder Ino had retreated at the feel of it.

"Did you feel something when our friends almost died trying to bring you back?" Sakura asked Sasuke's ghost because she couldn't talk to the real Sasuke. Not when he was making his way across the country after putting a hole through Naruto and leading to Neji and Chouji's injuries and the shadows in Shikamaru's eyes. "You say you can't have any bonds apart from hatred," Naruto had to unburden himself somehow, "but what did you think about everyone wearing themselves down to the bone to get you back? It's not like you were close friends with any of them but you are a Konoha nin-" Sakura took in a sharp breath. How could she say that now? "No. You were a Konoha ninja. They did everything they could to get you back because they knew something about loyalty. Did you feel anything about that?"

Sasuke didn't answer, simply stared at her with dark eyes that Sakura once loved so much. Now she railed against how she could never read them, not properly, not enough to know what he was planning. Oh, she had managed to predict that he was leaving that night, but look at how little good it had done. If she had managed to find the right words, none of this would have happened.

"You are our teammate." Sasuke may not be a Konoha nin anymore, but he would remain their teammate. "We are loyal." A pointed barb which was wasted against the ghost of her own mind. Sasuke's ghost blinked at her but his expression did not change. "Do you remember what that is like?"

No response. Sakura sat down hard on her bed. It was pointless, taking out her anger, her hurt, her guilt over not doing more on someone who wasn't even there. The worst thing was, she didn't want the ghost to disappear. "I miss you." The tears came suddenly, streaking down her cheeks. She hadn't cried since the others had returned, feeling like a traitor herself as she cried over a missing-nin, and now they raced unimpeded down her face and spotted her sleep shorts.

It was the exact opposite of what she wanted to do and that was the reason why she turned her back on the ghost of Sasuke and lay down on her bed. With his eyes on her, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

***

Sakura knows she will be a good medic-nin. She has the chakra control, the determination and the intelligence for it. Tsunade herself chose her for it and she doesn't choose useless quitters. But when she stares at the amount of work she had done already and the work she still had to do in order to learn the new jutsu Shizune was showing her, she really felt like giving up.

"This isn't for you, Sakura," Sasuke said to her. His ghost had become more talkative since the first time she had seen him but she normally never liked what he had to say. This time was no exception.

"Excuse me?" She stiffened in offended indignation as if the real Sasuke had spoken. Sasuke's ghost now looked like he had at the third task of the Chuunin exams, black shirt and curse mark as well.

He nodded at the pile of work in front of her. "This isn't for you. You are meant to become a Chuunin and stay a Chuunin. Aiming higher is stupid, you aren't meant for this."

Sakura's fists clenched and she called chakra to them without a second thought. It was the only the fact that he wouldn't feel her punch that halted the blow. She couldn't smash mountains yet like Tsunade but her punches were far harder than they were when Sasuke last sparred with her.

"You don't know what I'm meant for." Sakura knew the ghost was only part of her mind but that did not stop her fists from clenching. This Sasuke might be part of her imagination but she seemed to know him better than she thought because his arrogance and his cruelty were spot on.

"You are from a civilian family with no special talent or family jutsu to your name." Sasuke's voice was quiet, as it always was when he was at his most hurtful. "If you hadn't been on a team with Naruto and I, no one would even know your name. You would have become one of the washed out wannabe ninja who graduated from the Academy but couldn't pass the test to become genin."

Sakura took a breath and stared at the boy she loved. He looked back at her and, even after everything, Sakura found herself examining his face with her eyes. Every inch was precious to her and at the same time it hurt to look at him.

The Sakura she was at the time Team 7 was formed would have heard the words in her crush's voice and agreed with him, her untested strength withering before his confidence. But Sakura wasn't that person anymore. She had faced a Sannin, an unstable ninja with a demon on his side and her village being invaded. She was stronger than she knew.

"I know what I'm capable of," she said calmly in the way she had learned from her teacher. Calm but fury hidden behind each word. "And I am capable of this."

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly and then narrowed. "Well then, let's see it."

Sakura settled down to work. Not only to show the ghost of the boy she loved but also to prove to the real boy, wherever he may be, that she was stronger than he knew. She would show he was wrong to leave her behind, to leave her staring at his back. She would get stronger and she would be the best field medic-nin the world had ever seen.

***

Kakashi's apartment was small, only consisting of one room and then a shared bathroom. He kept a small water heater underneath his desk and Sakura used it to boil water for her tea. Kakashi was sleeping on the bed now she had finished healing him, the sleep of the drugged, and she had promised to guard his sleep until the medication wore off. Her movements didn't disturb him and while she was sure he could fake sleep with the best of them, she was also sure that the amount of painkillers and sedatives she had given him would put even Gai down for the count.

The water boiled and she poured herself a cup of tea, letting the aroma fill the apartment as it steeped. The board above his desk was filled with notices and messages about missions from various ninja. Sakura recognised several lots of handwriting, Gai's showing up the most closely followed by Tsunade's, Genma's, and even what looked like Iruka and Anko's. She stared at the last two, she hadn't realised Kakashi was acquainted with Anko and Iruka but then shrugged it off. The bookshelf by the door had the fluorescent covers of Jiraiya's stupid books and the one by the window had various ninja manuals. Sakura checked Kakashi, her medical chakra flaring green as she did a quick diagnostic scan. A restful sleep.

Sakura pulled her hand back, only for the photos in pride of place above Kakashi's head to catch her eye. There was one with the Yondaime standing in the sensei position behind a brunette girl with purple marks on her cheeks, a boy with large goggles that had a Naruto-ish look on his face and next to him a boy who could only be a little Kakashi, mask and spiky silver hair and all. The look in his eyes was strange though, far colder than Sakura had ever seen in her sensei's eyes in Konoha. Not even when they were young and stupid and dropping erasers on his head did he look at them like that. 

She shook her head and took in a breath, almost bracing herself before she looked at the next Team photo. Her younger self stared up at her, a naive, foolish smile on her face as she stood in between her teammates. Naruto with a grin and Sasuke with a smirk and Kakashi in the background with his hands on Naruto and Sasuke's heads. The photo summed up Team 7 perfectly.

Sakura pulled back but couldn't take her eyes off the photo. She remembered when it had been taken, how she had been thinking about how excited she was to be part of a team. Yes, she had said to hate Naruto back then and she had frequently said both out loud and in her head that it would be much better if the team had been just her and Sasuke (Sakura cringed just thinking about it) but she had still felt happy to be a team of three, though she wouldn't admit it. Kakashi had been a terrible sensei to her, he probably had been better to Sasuke and Naruto, but he had stirred up loyalty. She liked being part of a team and when she went home to her parents' disinterested questions, she had wanted to be back with her team.

She turned her back on the photo and the memories, only to come face to face with Sasuke. His ghost was now wearing a grey shirt with a black and grey scarf which Sakura vaguely remembered seeing the Sound nin wearing when they invaded Konoha. To see Sasuke in the same outfit as Konoha's enemies made her stomach roll and she looked away, picking up her tea and taking a sip of the too hot liquid. When she glanced at Sasuke, because she couldn't not, he was looking at Kakashi and she was filled with protective fury.

"Do not look at him," she said, her voice barely above a whisper in order not to wake Kakashi. She stepped in between Kakashi and Sasuke, no matter that the latter was a ghost of her imagination, she would protect her sensei. "You do not deserve to look at him."

"He was my sensei too, Sakura," Sasuke said. His voice was exactly the same as she remembered it and she straightened her back against the shivers his voice invoked. "I don't forget that just because I left."

"You betrayed him," Sakura said, her voice going a little too high until she dropped it again. A glance at Kakashi showed he was undisturbed and another diagnostic scan showed the same thing. "You used the jutsu he taught you against Naruto. I saw his face when he heard what happened, I saw that light fade in his eye." She would never inspire the same pride in her sensei and she had come to terms with that but to have Sasuke use and betray Kakashi like that - it was something she couldn't stand. "Naruto still has hope he can bring you home but Kakashi, he doesn't dare to hope because he knows how much it hurts. Of all the people you hurt, I think it was the worst for him."

Sasuke looked at her. She couldn't read what was behind those eyes, even without the Sharingan. "And what about you, Sakura?" He asked. She blinked in surprise and he was gone.

Kakashi let out a breath and Sakura turned back to her patient. She may not have been able to stop Sasuke but healing was something she knew how to do and never was it more important than with Kakashi. Her sensei, though he tries to avoid her with as many missions as his body can take and she won't admit it but that hurts, and she would earn the same loyalty from him as he had from her.

She put Sasuke to the back of her mind. There would be time to think about him later.

***

Seeing Sasuke after nearly three years was a shock to the system. But she was on a mission and she put the feelings to the back of her mind. She wasn't Naruto, she couldn't feel everything and not be slowed down by it, she had to go at Sasuke with an intent to wound otherwise she would never succeed.

But afterwards, when they returned to the village and Sakura returned to her darkened apartment, there was no mission to keep going for. No one around to keep her front up for and when she turned around from locking her door, there was Sasuke as she just saw him, white shirt and purple belt rather than the standard Sound outfit she had imagined him in for so long.

"It was awful seeing you today," Sakura said quietly. She went around her apartment, not bothering to switch on any lights as she went around sorting the mail and preparing tea - all the usual things she did after a long mission out of the village. There was an Academy student who came in to feed her cat when Sakura was away so Shampoo's bowls were filled with food and water but there was no sign of the cat herself.

"I imagine it was," the ghost of Sasuke replied. "I am good at hiding my emotions, I probably felt something when I faced you as well."

Sakura snorted as she boiled water for her tea. "Maybe when you saw Naruto, but I was little more than an annoying fly to you. You considered Sai more of a threat."

"Or maybe I was angry at his existence. Angry at the idea that I could be replaced so easily," Sasuke replied and Sakura shook her head. The Sasuke in her mind was far kinder than the real thing was, if she asked the real Sasuke he would agree with her.

She thought back to when she had seen him standing over them in the crater. It had been hard to reconcile the differences between the Sasuke she had known and the Sasuke he was now, not just in the physical changes but also in the way his gaze rested on them. It was far colder than she had been prepared for, looking her over in an almost clinical fashion and then dismissing her to focus on Naruto. It was like he was dead inside and while Sakura had thought his viewpoint would have changed, spending the days obsessing over training and revenge without any respite that he would get in Konoha wasn't good for anyone's mental health, she hadn't been expecting him to change as much as he did.

It confronted a fear of hers; even if they did manage to get Sasuke back (and she had to believe they would), it wouldn't be the same. Sasuke would be too cold, too broken, to be able to let them in again and while they may go through the motions of being a team, they would never again be like they were. Sometimes things that were broken could be remade to become something more beautiful than before, like kintsugi art, but sometimes broken things remained broken and never could be repaired to resemble what they once were.

The ghost of Sasuke watched her as she drank her tea but she was so used to this after two and a half years, that it barely phased her. He had been a silent, and not so silent observer, to much of her life. Sometimes Sakura wondered why she imagined him up and how she managed to get him so lifelike but at other times she merely accepted it. For most of her early life she had an Inner Sakura, someone who said things she would never say and who had pushed Ino out when she had tried to invade her mind, and now she had an Outer Sasuke.

She put the cup down after she finished her tea and looked at Sasuke. He stared back but said nothing. "We will get you back," Sakura said calmly. Things may never be what they were, but Sasuke belonged to them and Orochimaru and Sasuke's own hatred couldn't have him.

It was a vow in the privacy of her apartment. No one else would hold her accountable to it, not like Naruto who proclaimed his vows to the world, only herself. But she was her own strictest master and she would not fail.

***

The tree she was leaning against felt like the only thing that was real in the world right now. Her opponent lay dead across from the ruined clearing from her and backup was on its way. If she could survive until then, everything will have worked out fine.

Sakura let her knees bend, dropping to the ground softly and pressing her back against the tree, wanting the support though the rough bark snagged at her hair. She had a hand pressed to the gaping wound on her stomach but what little chakra she had had been used to close up the major arteries that had been nicked. The rest of the bleeding continued unabated, slowly flowing over her hand and staining her red top a darker red. The smell of blood filled the air and Sakura breathed it in, flashing back to the hospital as she watched Saito, a cheerful jounin who had brought her a muffin every time she healed him, bleed out while all their medical expertise was useless.

Fighting against Sasori had led her close to death but she had been fighting the whole time, none of this sitting and watching as her lifeblood leached out of her inch by inch. Against Sasori there was no chance of her standing still to contemplate the end of her life, of dying, for he had to be outsmarted and it wasn't like Chiyo would let her. But now there was nothing else to think about and all Sakura could do was wait. For help or for death.

Her vision was filled suddenly, not with the mangled and bloody body of her opponent, a missing-nin who had objected to Sakura healing his victims, but with the ghost of Sasuke as she remembered him, ridiculous purple belt and all. "You can't die, Sakura," he said, his voice frantic unlike anything Sakura had heard him say in life.

"Oh yeah?" She asked. "You are the product of my split mind and so nothing you say matters."

Sasuke blinked and his expression settled into something a little more familiar, a little more blank. "And why is that? If I am a product of your imagination, then me saying you can't die is like you telling yourself you can't die."

Sakura grinned and she knew it was bloodstained from where she had bitten her tongue during the fight. She had spat out some of the blood, knowing vomiting would be incredibly painful and possibly deadly right now, but the taste of blood was on her tongue. "Part of me wants to die though," she said honestly because if you can't be honest with yourself at the time of your death, then when can you be honest? "Part of me wants to rest and not have to worry about Akatsuki or bringing you back."

"You're not suicidal," Sasuke said with a certainty Sakura didn't realise she felt.

"No," she agrees. "For one thing, dying really hurts." So did talking but Sakura could feel blackness on the edges of her vision and when she talked, it was kept at bay. She pressed a hand harder against her wound, though the all the gauze was soaked right through, and tried to organise her thoughts. "Part of me wants to live, for me and for my friends. But I also made a vow to bring you back home and I'm guessing that is why you're here." She took a breath and coughed as the air hit the back of her throat. "I haven't completed my vow so I can't die yet." It would be letting herself down, as well as letting her team down, and she wasn't going to allow it to happen again.

"Or maybe I'm here to keep you awake until help arrives," Sasuke replied and with a start of surprise, Sakura realised she could feel three chakra signatures approaching fast, one of which she easily recognised as Shizune. She flared her chakra, an SOS beacon if there ever was one, and she felt their change of direction as they headed towards her.

"Maybe you're right," Sakura said and the ghost of Sasuke disappeared at the same second as Shizune, Kitou and Iwashi landed in the clearing in between her and her opponent. Iwashi went to check the missing nin's body while Shizune and Kitou approached her. She gave her report to Shizune before thankfully passing out.

She woke up in Konoha hospital and Sasuke, the ghost of him at least, was standing over her. "Told you you can't die," he said and the smugness was all him. Sakura, her medication leaving her blissfully painfree, could only smile.

"Oh shut up." And she went back to sleep.

***

All those years ago, Sakura had been right. Sasuke returning to the Village did not fix everything right away. Naruto had been the one who had welcomed him back the most and even then Sakura could tell he felt awkward around Sasuke. Jokes and comments he made went either ignored or unnoticed by Sasuke and the only place they seemed to connect was on the training field.

Sakura didn't even try. If Naurto, the person who understood Sasuke the best, was having trouble connecting with Sasuke, then she had no hope. She showed up for team practices, included Sasuke whenever she could, but after practice was finished, she didn't try to see Sasuke outside of practice. She wasn't the only one where it was weird, Kakashi had pretty much avoided Sasuke and Naruto since Sasuke returned. The only reason he couldn't avoid Sakura was she was his medic-nin and Tsunade had given an order that he could avoid the hospital but only if he let Sakura heal him at home. No other medic-nin was willing to traipse over the village to heal a jounin who hated the hospital and Sakura used it as an opportunity to connect with her sensei again.

"You haven't been to practices for a while," Sakura said after the complicated bit of the healing was done and she didn't have to have her full attention on it. Now it was healing the smaller abrasions and cuts that littered Kakashi's body. She always drew this part out because it was the time when Kakashi had to sit and talk to her and couldn't disappear and turn up three days later with no memory of what they had been talking about.

"You're all jounin level, I'm sure you can manage without your old sensei," Kakashi replied lightly.

"Really? Because it feels more like avoidance to me." If Sakura played along, they would circle around the point of the conversation and she would leave feeling frustrated with no closer answers than before. "Have you seen Sasuke since he returned?"

Kakashi rolled his one visible eye. "Spare me the lecture, Naruto already cornered me," he said dryly. He shifted as Sakura hit a sore spot and she gentled her grip in an unspoken apology. The large laceration across his chest was partly healed, left open in order to let the body do some of its own work, but the small cuts across his arms and stomach were numerous and deceptively deep.

"You could stop the lectures if you just came to a practice," Sakura pointed out. She finished with the deeper cut on the side of Kakashi's torso and moved onto the large, shallow one just above his hip. She had to push his pants a little further down in order to reach it but thankfully she didn't have to ask him to remove them. That had been embarrassing enough the last time it happened. "You don't have to talk to him, you could spar with me instead. It would be a nice change for me to actually work instead of watching Sasuke and Naruto beat each other up."

Kakashi stilled, just for a second. "They don't spar with you?" He asked. It was hard to read his tone and when Sakura glanced up, his gaze was steady but unreadable.

"Well, Naruto is really excited to have Sasuke back and the only way he seems to get through to Sasuke is by sparring. And Sasuke, well I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm not worth it and as nice as it would be to punch that smirk off his face, it's not worth it." Not worth what she wasn't sure. Not worth Sasuke seeing that he got to her? Or not worth having to talk to Sasuke afterwards?

"He's wrong," Kakashi said, snapping Sakura out of her thoughts.

"Hmm?" She finished healing up his stomach and moved onto his arms. They were already marked, the new cuts slashing over new skin as well as silvery old scars and when she healed them, the red semi-healed cuts left behind stood out starkly.

"You are strong, Sakura, and sparring with you... it's a challenge." Kakashi's words came slowly as if he wanted to make sure he got them right, to make sure she heard him. For Kakashi, who she could say was honestly one of the strongest ninja she had ever met (even after meeting nearly all of the Akatsuki), to say that sparring against her was a challenge was the highest form of compliment of her skills. Sakura had never won a spar against Kakashi and she always felt like she fell far short of actually helping him train.

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei." She went back to work but the smile didn't fade from her face. To be recognised as strong by someone she cared about, that was everything and she felt all the lighter for it. "It means something to hear that from you."

"I'll talk to Sasuke if you want."

The smile disappeared and Sakura drew back, stunned and horrified. "Oh God, no." She could think of nothing worse than Kakashi talking to Sasuke after him hurting Sakura's feelings by not wanting to spar with her. It was like a parent talking to a bully at school, embarrassing and ultimately useless. You couldn't change how a bully felt about you, just like no matter what Kakashi said, it wouldn't stop Sasuke from seeing Sakura as a medic-nin whose skills in fighting were limited, despite his working with Kabuto for years. "Kakashi-sensei, if you really want to do something to help then come to a team practice with me. We can spar together and I know Naruto will be happy that the team is all reunited again." Apart from Sai and Yamato but last time Sakura saw Sai was when he was hanging around Naruto's apartment and Yamato was a month long mission.

Kakashi looked at her and Sakura stared back. She could always guilt him into doing it but she had a feeling that Kakashi's guilt complex was active enough without her help. "Fine," Kakashi agreed, sounding more like a petulant child than a grown adult.

"Great." Sakura healed up the last of the cuts. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon on our old training grounds at one." The practice started at half two but Sakura liked to get there early and get some solitary training in when there was no chance of interfering with someone else and knowing Kakashi he would be late anyway. "If you don't show up, I'll be disappointed."

She said a cheery goodbye and left a disgruntled Kakashi to his thoughts. He would show up tomorrow, probably four hours late, but she could deal with that. As long as he showed up.

After having the talk with Kakashi, he started to show up semi-regularly to all their training sessions together. More often than not, he sparred with Sakura (which she felt a little smug about if she was being honest with herself) and showed her how to do a jutsu he knew that he felt was suitable for her. It seemed like he was making up for being a bad sensei all those years ago.

It was a little uncomfortable when he was polite to Sasuke but nothing more. The atmosphere was almost icy, but Sakura dealt with it because at least Kakashi was turning up. Because he thought she needed rescuing but she would take what she could get. Still she wondered what would happen between them when she sent a message to Naruto that she wouldn't be attending today's training session. She also applied for and got a day off from the hospital and did her yearly visit home.

It was late afternoon and one sake bottle later that the ghost of Sasuke turned up again.

"Haven't seen you in a while," she said in amusement. The ghost of Sasuke had turned up once when Sasuke had returned to the village and that was the night before his trial when Sakura couldn't face going to see him. He was wearing the grey shirt Sasuke wore nowadays and had the same stoic look on his face.

"You've been drinking," Sasuke said judgementally.

Sakura stared at him in bemusement and took another sip of sake. Sasuke's ghost wasn't normally that judgemental about her drinking, she gave herself a break on this day every year and otherwise abstained. She had treated too many ninja who used alcohol as a coping mechanism and their livers were not something she wanted to experience. "Well done," she said sincerely. "But you know I only drink on this day every year. If you can't get plastered on your mother's birthday, then when can you get plastered?" It wasn't just her parents she was thinking about this year, or the rest of her family, it was about Sasuke. This was the day when she allowed herself to mope and brood over her life. Tomorrow morning she would be hungover but would feel all the better for letting it all out. Repressing led to bad things, it led to Sasuke and she said as much to him.

"I didn't repress anything," Sasuke replied. He sounded uptight and very disapproving.

"Yes you did. You repressed your bonds towards us and focused on your hatred for your brother. And look how that turned out." Then Sakura thought for a moment and ignored Sasuke's ghost activating the Sharingan. He had done it a few times before and Sakura wondered whether it was make the ghost more lifelike for her or because she really made herself mad sometimes. "Although I wouldn't say bonds towards us, maybe towards Naruto and Kakashi. I think I could have been replaced by Ino on the team and it wouldn't have made a difference." Some things had hurt to realise but Sakura was well-practiced in them by now. Sometimes the ghost was cruel and confirmed how she meant nothing to him but sometimes he was kind and disagreed with her.

"I had bonds towards all of you," Sasuke said. He seemed to have decided to be kind. The Sharingan had disappeared. "If I didn't have a bond, I would have taken you with me that night."

Okay, not so kind. That wasn't a night Sakura particularly wanted to remember and she didn't really want to be reminded of it. "That makes no sense," Sakura said to herself. "Although I have been drinking." Maybe it was affecting her more than she thought if she was making up nonsense to justify why Sasuke didn't take her with him.

"Is this why you've been so cold to me since I came back?" That was an odd question and Sakura squinted at the figment of her imagination.

"Like you care," she said lightly. She put the drained sake cup on her table and resolved no more. The world was spinning and her mind was coming up with ridiculous questions, she needed to cut herself off. "If I thought you wanted to be a team again, I would invite you to a team dinner. But you're rebuilding your bonds with Naruto perfectly fine, I know he's invited you to ramen several times, and Kakashi-sensei will come around."

"I do want to be a team again." Sasuke actually looked upset and Sakura blinked in surprise. Something was wrong here but the alcohol made the thought too slippery and it disappeared as quickly as it came. "I know things can't be the same but I want us to be like we were."

Sakura turned this over in her mind and then decided to discard common sense. She would say to her mind Sasuke what she never could to real Sasuke and maybe venting at him would get it off her chest and she could face the real Sasuke tomorrow with a polite smile on her face. "Then what are you doing about it?" She asked. She hadn't let herself feel anger towards Sasuke since he came back, too grateful at first, and then too scared of the consequences. The Sasuke who returned was foreign to her and it wasn't safe to show him anything but indifference. Here in the safety of her own home, she could let loose. "If you want us to be a team again, then start reaching out. I am fed up of reaching out and then being rejected. I won't do it anymore. Naruto, Kakashi-sensei and I were always right here. We didn't leave, you did. If you want things to change, then change things."

She stood up and turned her gaze away from Sasuke, not wanting to see what look her imagination had put on her face. "Now go away. Go wherever imaginary people go." She turned her back and went to bed. It had been a long day.

The next morning she woke with a pounding headache and a dry throat from not drinking enough water last night. She also had the real Sasuke standing at the bottom of her bed. "You do realise how creepy that is," she said flatly.

"I'm not imaginary," he said in reply and Sakura gave him a strange look as she sat up, thankful she had worn pyjamas that covered her from neck to ankle.

"Congratulations," she said slowly. "Why does that - oh fuck." Everything that happened last night came back in a rush and Sakura put her hands over her eyes, groaning in pain. "Please say that wasn't you last night." Sasuke remained silent and Sakura got all the answer she needed. "Sasuke, I am very, very sorry." God, she couldn't even remember what she said last night exactly. She had been venting about him not wanting to build bonds with her and then ranted at him about leaving - if she remembered correctly, she had been a mess last night.

"I have some questions," Sasuke said. Sakura dropped her hands and glared at him, opening her mouth in preparation to tell him to go away until she regained at least some of her wits, but then he pushed a glass of water at her and the considerateness of the gesture left her speechless. "Naruto says you go home to your parents on this day but you were here when I came looking for you. Why do you get drunk on your mother's birthday?"

Try as she might, Sakura couldn't muster up the energy to be angry. She was too tired and hungover; instead she drank the water and took small pleasure in watching Sasuke get more and more impatient as she drank the water. "Why do you want to know?" She asked when she had finished the glass.

Sasuke looked away. "You wanted me to try." He stopped and let Sakura fill in the gaps.

It was personal and hard to talk about but she had wanted him to try and change things. And seeing him like this in her bedroom, it felt like the ghost of Sasuke her mind had created to make sure she didn't forget him as he was and as she wanted him to be. To make sure she didn't forget what he had taught her.

"I visit my parents on my mother's birthday. My father has his birthday a few days before so I do both of them in one visit." She wanted to pull her knees up to her chest, but it was a blatant show of vulnerability and she resisted. "A lot of civilian parents struggle to adapt when their children become ninja. Some become overprotective. My parents, they have two older daughters already who are following the right path. Me becoming a ninja, they thought it was a phase and I would quit after learning what being a ninja was all about." There was no need to talk about how much that realisation had hurt. Sakura didn't need to know that her parents expected her to fail and then to conform to the life they wanted for her. She had watched her two older sisters disappear into their marriages and everything that made them them was pushed down until it just didn't exist anymore. "My parents don't want me to be there any longer than I have to and I... I find it hard to be there." It felt like she was disappearing into the girl she once was who had simply wanted to find a powerful husband and retire to have children. It scared her.

Sasuke nodded. He didn't say anything in reply to this, simply looked thoughtful, and Sakura thought that was better. How could Sasuke empathise with her? He had lost his parents at the age of eight, when your parents were still your whole world and could do no wrong. He didn't know what it was like to grow up and look at your parents as flawed human beings. "Do Kakashi-sensei and Naruto know?" Sasuke asked.

"Kakashi-sensei has guessed, I think." It was hard not to realise when Sakura moved out of her parents' home as soon as she became a Chuunin and changed her next-of-kin to her sensei rather than her parents. "Naruto hasn't." He saw she had parents and they weren't horrifically abusive and was instantly jealous. It was hard to explain to him that there was something between good parents and abusive parents. But she really didn't want to go into any more detail. "Now it's my turn. Want to go and get something to eat?"

Sasuke looked at her and Sakura felt something inside her hold still in anticipation. When he nodded, it released. "Okay then." She stood up out of bed. "Now get out so I can get dressed." He left with a barely there smile and Sakura watched him go. She felt lighter and more settled. Maybe they could meet up with Naruto and Kakashi as well.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm tempted to write a sequel where Sakura gets to know the real Sasuke and her relationship with her older sisters is explored. Also there's not a lot of Naruto in this one and I love Naruto.


End file.
